INDIAN CAVE, MIDDLE CAICOS

Located just west of the village
of Conch Bar, Indian Head Cave is a large cavern with multiple large skylights
through the ceiling. For the week of May 11th, 1998, Bill Keegan
(archaeologist), David Steadman (ornithologist), Dick Franz (herpetologist)
excavated in the cave with the assistance of Reed and Barbara Toomey,
Brian Riggs, and Anne Stokes. Our goal was to determine if people had
occupied the cave in the past and to obtain a record of the animals that
lived in the area in the past.

Caves are excellent locations to
search for animal bones. Caves provide shelter for a wide variety of animals,
such as iguanas and tortoises who use the cave to escape the heat of the
day. Some of these animals happen to die in the cave, while the carcasses
of others are brought by a carnivorous birds who roost in the cave. Large
owls are excellent at sampling the local fauna, especially small birds
and reptiles. In addition, the dry, limestone soils help to preserve the
bones of dead animals.

Our excavations were conducted
in two areas. The first was two adjacent one-meter squares which were
excavated near the cavern entrance. The deepest of these was excavated
in 10 cm levels (4 inches) to a depth of 230 cm (over 8 feet). There were
no human objects recovered in this area. Near the surface there was a
lot of charcoal which probably entered the cave as a result of fires set
by people in the area. A wide variety of birds and reptiles were recovered
during the excavation. Bird bones from locally extinct and extirpated
owls, hawk, parrot, quaildove, and a flightless rail were also recovered.
The reptiles were represented by small lizards as well as the extinct
Turks and Caicos tortoise and a giant iguana. The tortoise and iguana
bones were found all the way to the bottom of the deposit which suggests
that they reached the island without the assistance of people. Surprisingly,
the only mammals in the deposit were bats, and there were also no frogs.

The other excavation area was along
the eastern wall of the cave. In this area we recovered lots of tortoise
bones, some of which were unfossilized. The preservation of these as bone
indicates that the tortoise was living on Middle Caicos within the last
few centuries. Eight pieces of very black pottery were recovered near
the surface. Ann Cordell, ceramic technologist at the Florida Museum of
Natural History, identified the paste as typical of that found in Meillacan
pottery (A.D. 850-1300) from Hispaniola. In addition to the pottery there
was also a brass thimble, which indicates that the cave was used until
historic times.

All of the material excavated from
the cave is now under analysis at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
Upon completion of the analysis a representative sample of the material
will be used in interpretive displays at the cave. We are grateful to
Mike, Micky, and Dale Witt of Blue Horizon Resort (649-946-6141).